Say please and thank you. Don't raise your voice. Sit up straight with your legs together and hands on your lap. Don't draw attention to yourself. And never ever brag.
These are the lessons many parents teach their daughters. And while these attributes--politeness, deference, humility--and the way they are projected through our gestures, gait and self-presentation can certainly help in the classroom and certain social settings, they could be holding many of us back professionally.
Jeannine Fallon, executive director of corporate communications at Edmunds.com, learned this at a training course called "Women Unlimited," which she attended when she worked at Volvo 10 years ago.
"I distinctly remember one insight," she says of the session. "At a boardroom table, women tend to pile all their materials neatly and sit tucked into the table, while men tend to sprawl out, push away from the table, cross his ankle over a knee and lock arms behind his head. It was impressed upon us that the concept of taking up space correlates to the concept of dominance." The result? "I've never sat tucked into a table since."
An image is worth 1,000 words: No matter how illustrious our resumes, how brilliant our ideas, how Calvinist our work ethic, we are judged by how we present ourselves. Research shows that it takes four minutes to make a first impression, and, according to a widely cited study by UCLA professor Albert Mehrabian, body language accounts for 55% of that impression (38% comes from tone of voice; the remaining 7% from our actual words).
Unfortunately, says Carey O'Donnell, president of Carey O'Donnell Public Relations Group, based in West Palm Beach, Fla., "many of us have no idea that our non-verbal cues are making an impact. There are thousands of micro-expressions, and people are reading these, even if they are only subconsciously translating these cues."
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Some of the visual ticks common to women:
- Tilting your head--a sign of listening that can be misinterpreted as one of submission or even flirting.
- Folding your hands on your lap--hiding your hands under a conference table or desk, for example, signals untrustworthiness; a cue from ancient times, when men would reveal their palms to show they were unarmed.
- Crossing your legs--a sign of resistance.
- Excessive smiling--an indication that you lack gravitas and seriousness.
- Folding your arms in front of you--translates to insecurity or defensiveness.
- Playing with or tugging at your hair, jewellery or clothes--can signal distress or, again, be misinterpreted as flirting.
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Image: Minimizing Yourself - Women tend to go out of their way to make themselves smaller.
